Anonymous asked: I'm way older than you 57 but I'm relating to doing heroin in the 90's and in SF and I'm an engineer. I like what you're doing w/ this. The weirdness of being a scientist and a druggie. I also am a poet. And so so clean (17 yrs). Anyhoo. "Thanks for sharing." Um, how do you deal with keeping your professional reputation as a scientist? I get paranoid about that, esp as a female. Do any colleagues know about your drug past? And you have this blog it's pretty out there. Do you change names?

I change all the names.  There are no photos of me.  I have a whole different set of email addresses.

Of course, anyone who knew me back then could piece everything together.  But that’s not really what I’m worried about.  I just don’t want any of this to show up on my Google “resume”.

None of my colleagues know about my history of drug use and neither do most of the people I’ve met in the last 10 years.

But that level of secrecy is pretty isolating.  So this is basically my place to vent anything that I can’t put on Facebook.

Obviously, it’s not a perfect solution.